Just a few links hanging around on my desktop…
- Take the LGF Quiz: Little Green Footballs or late German Fascists?
- I have a reason to live! Only three weeks until the new Stephen Sondheim album is released!
- A New York Times article reports on progress being made in producing remote controls which will be implanted in our brains, so we can control our devices with just our thoughts. Kewl!
- A good Head Heeb post on Israel’s security fence points out that the wall has been good for both Israelis and Palestinians where it has followed the Green Line. (It’s been good for Palestinians because it’s easier to be kept out of Israel by a wall than it is to be kept out of Israel by an occupying army bent on collective punishment).
My view has always been that the Wall would be a good idea if it weren’t for Israel’s attempt to use it to grab territory beyond the green line. Israel has, of late, been re-routing the Wall to be closer to the green line. So give some credit to Israel; and credit as well to Israel’s critics, without whom Israel would probably have stuck to their original plan.
Unfortunately, Israel is still planning to hold onto settlements it should let go, which will only prolong the bloodshed.
- Speaking of Israel, a Zogby poll shows that ” in direct opposition to Congressional attitudes, a majority of Americans now believe that Congress should hold Israel accountable for maintaining programs of weapons of mass destruction and for its human rights violations in the Palestinian Territories.” How strange – am I actually part of the mainstream on an issue?
- New to the blogroll: Jewschool.com.
- The US Catholic Bishops website has court transcripts of the three ongoing partial-birth abortion ban trials. The transcripts are in .pdf format, unfortunately (I find html superior for reading), but still interesting reading. Via After Abortion.
- Some testimony has been a setback for the pro-life folks; their own witness admitted under cross-examination that “partial-birth” abortion might include D&E abortions as well as D&X abortions. That kind of over-broad definition was one reason the Supreme Court has found past “partial-birth” abortion bans to be unconstitutional.
- Interesting post by Robert Corr about when in a pregnancy “personhood” can be said to begin. His view is that the same conditions that medicine uses to define death should determine when abortion is acceptable. From a debate Robert links to:
Until the 20th week … there is no complex cerebral cortex and no major central nervous activity. That is a condition universally regarded as a state of death in adults. An adult human being in such a state cannot really be “killed,” just unplugged. And such an act would not be disrespectful of their individual existence because that existence has already ceased, and only a body remains.
In the case of a fetus, you’d replace “has already ceased” with “has not yet begun,” but the same general principle applies. I don’t entirely agree with Robert, but it’s very interesting nonetheless. Via Feministe.
- It’s basically just a very long commercial (or, as the Times calls it, an “advertainment”), but I thought The Adventures of Seinfeld and Superman was a hoot.
- Why aren’t politicians flocking to cater to the single woman vote? Ms. Musings has a discussion and many links.
- S.K. Elkins discusses “same-sex marriage and the religion in which I was raised.” Which, in her case, is Reform Judaism. There’s more than I can sum up, and it’s all good, so go read it; but I want to quote this bit in particular:
So can we please stop framing this as a “religious versus secular” debate now? Please? Because for people who belong to faiths which already recognize same-sex marriage, that whole shtick is not only getting really old, it’s also got to be getting really insulting.
This is a legal and a constitutional issue. The only way to frame this as a religious issue at all, IMO, would be to frame it as one of religious discrimination.
And I don’t think that any of us really wants to go that route, do we?
Actually, I’ve been wondering what would happen if some pro-gay religious organization did sue on those grounds…
- Gabriel Rosenberg has been defending this syllogism:
- Legal parents ought to be married.
- Gays are legal parents.
- therefore, Gays ought to be married.
Start here and then use the links at the top of the post to move through Gabriel’s discussion; it’s really excellent, closely-reasoned work. The debating technique – accepting a major premise of the opposition, and showing how that premise actually supports Gabriel’s case – is classic.
- On the other hand, if you want to test how strong your stomach is, read this anti-same-sex-marriage piece by sci-fi novelist Orson Scott Card. His hatred – not just for gays, but for left-wingers in general – is not well hidden. I particularly like the bit where he brings up the old “gays are trying to recruit your children!” myth.
Is that breakdancing rabbi on the Jew School title graphic your work, perchance?
Ugh, O.S. Card pissed me off with that article. I read it several weeks ago on another publication — I believe it was a North Carolina newspaper.
I’m not sure how that can be considered an opinion piece worth publishing. I’ve always thought that opinions don’t count without at least *some* backing, and all he has is prejudice. Discrimination much? Sounds like blatant homophobia to me. And to think how much respect I had for the man before this.
…every American who believes in democracy should be outraged that any court should take it upon itself to dictate such a social innovation without recourse to democratic process.
Courts have interpreted laws to give them meaning and have stricken unconstitutional laws for 200 years, since Marbury v. Madison.
Under Card’s reasoning, Brown v. Board of Education is “judicial activism.” After all, Plessy v. Ferguson stated that “separate but equal” facilities for Negroes doesn’t violate the 14th Amendement….and those people want to be in *our* schools!
We will once again be performing a potentially devastating social experiment on ourselves without any attempt to predict the consequences and find out if the American people actually want them.
Shelley v. Kraemer. Brown v. Board of Education. Spiuel v. Board of Regents of the State of Oklahoma. All initiated potentially devastating social experiments on America without an attempt to predict the consequences and find out if the American people actually want Negroes in our public schools. Not to mention Loving v. Virginia and all those quadroons and octoroons and macaroons that decision has produced. (Sarcasm off, for the very sensitive among us.)
Card goes in about reproductive security, but fails to state why marriage’s ideal “calming effect” shouldn’t apply to same sex-couples as well. Card decries heterosexual men’s “broadcast strategy of reproduction,” yet ignores the fact that same-sex couples are also better child-raisers if a gay man stays at home with his husband instead of going to the bathhouse.
Why would men submit to rules that deprive them of the chance to satisfy their natural desire to mate with every attractive female?
Substitute “male” for female.
Because civilization provides the best odds for their children to live to adulthood. So even though civilized individuals can’t pursue the most obviously pleasurable and selfish (i.e., natural) strategies for reproduction, the fact is that they are far more likely to be successful at reproduction in a civilized society — whether they personally like the rules or not.
You just answered your own question, Orson. And this is one reason why same-sex marriage is GOOD. I am assuming that “reproduction” also means “child-raising”.
Card says that parents have a responsibility to raise their children to responsible adults. Undoubtedly, responsible parents are more likely to raise responsible children, and who would you rather have raising a child, a stable and responsible gay couple, or an opposite-sex couple whose prime recreational activity is snorting meth?
Card goes through fundie claptrap about how all homosexuals are the result of sexual abuse, and that heterosexuals are a stigmatized class. What poppycock. I’ve never gone onto Stark Street or in San Francisco and been chased out by a gang with baseball bats yelling “Breeder!! Get out of here, you breeder-ass breeder!”
And his statement that America’s military will crumble without conservatives? Well, I’m tempted to invoke Godwin, but I’ll say that an army of GODLESS COMMIES held off a furious invasion of their country by Germany in World War II, sometimes fighting hand-to-hand to gain mere feet in Stalingrad.
I’m all for same-sex marriage. My partner and I live in a little bungalow on the po’ side of town. Evidently we’re part of the “elite,” while a million-selling author swimming in royalties isn’t.
(in response to Aaron’s post)
Card goes through fundie claptrap about how all homosexuals are the result of sexual abuse
Well, I was told that if it’s not sexual abuse, then it’s the WWF/WWE/whatever professional wrestling is called these days. Yes, someone actually told me that makes people gay.
I’ve never gone onto Stark Street or in San Francisco and been chased out by a gang with baseball bats yelling “Breeder!! Get out of here, you breeder-ass breeder!”
That was a hilarious image, even if it’s never happened.
Evidently we’re part of the “elite,” while a million-selling author swimming in royalties isn’t.
You know it’s just one big fag conspiracy. (Pssst, don’t forget our Gay Army meeting on Monday!)
I’ve linked to this in the comments here, like, twice, but don’t forget this revealing expose on the gay agenda.
Oh and that Seinfeld, Superman thing is hilarious. I’m pretty sure that Superman is done by Patrick Warburton, who did the voice of Joe Swanson on Family Guy.
Yeah, Warburton does Supes’ voice. Warburton, of course, also played the Tick on the live-action series and was Puddy on Seinfeld’s show…
Yeah, great “commercial”. I’m looking forward to the rest of ’em…
That’s it, I’m not buying any more of Card’s books. And if I ever run across him at a con, I might not be able to maintain civility. Grrrr.
in re orson scott card, i stopped reading after this paragraph:
It apparently does not occur to this dimwit that there is already a universally accepted meaning of the word “day” that includes “night” [as in, day of the week]. it is quite correct to say that the mass sup ct “might as well” say that day includes night. in some contexts, it does. and since this debate is all about context [i.e., religious context as against civil/legal context], mr scott card can make no meaningful contribution.
Snuh, you should have carried on, at least until the bit where he explains that gay people can already get married, provided it’s to people of the opposite sex. That should be good enough for them apparently.
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Sorry I missed your link to Card’s lying piece of bigotry, but here’s my dissection of it anyway, written last year.
I probably wouldn’t have bothered if it had been by any other right-wing homophobic hack, but the fact is I’ve had so much respect and so much admiration for Orson Scott Card’s SF writing over twenty years. And in this one article, he did a considerable amount of damage to that respect – for reasons which I outline in my dissection.
Add this to your list
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595230092/103-5449605-0685461?v=glance&n=283155